From the MCRFB news archives:
Gladys Knight & The Pips Put On One Pip Of A Show In NYC
By ED OCHS
NEW YORK — Gladys Knight & The Pips, another one of Motown’s crack soul squads, proved once again in their Copacabana debut on Thursday night, July 18, 1968, that, in the Motor City, the motor is soul – powered and gassed up with Motown premium. Bongos and blues flavored with that old-time rock harmony struck the right cord for perky Gladys Knight and her three Pips.
A shade shorter than Martha Reeves and a hair-do higher than Diana Ross, Gladys Knight switched from R&B to clean pop vocal as easily as she changed gowns mid-show from red to green. Whether whipping the beat in “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” their biggest hit thus far, or cooing the blues in “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” she proved fluent in either language. Singing support for Miss Knight came from the Pips, whose driving sounds were tempered with straight-forward harmony and answering echoes. In “Girl Talk,” the Pips, minus Gladys Knight, cooled off the beat with a folksy, street-corner session.
Sandwiched in between their latest chart winner, “It Should Have Been Me,” the group stomped through “Every Road Leads Out Of Here,” followed with “Just Walk In My Shoes” and a soulful “Fever,” which dropped to funky part-way before it was rescued by the bluesy Miss Knight. The group, heard on the Motown Soul record label, charged up the opening-night crowd with their fancy footwork, burst of choreography and rally-round-the-microphone in sync while harmonizing. Even Al Foster and the Copa band reeled with the festivities, often overwhelming the voices with blaring horns and a beat falling like sequoia trees. END.
(Information and news source: Billboard Magazine; July 20, 1968).
